Clinton County first in state to use new voting tech

The Clinton County Board of Elections last week tested out Clear Count, a new ballot tabulating system.

PLATTSBURGH | Behind the scenes at the Clinton County Board of Elections, new technology is being used to count absentees ballots in this year’s general election.

The program is called Clear Count and it’s developed by Boston-based election technology company Clear Ballot.

Where counting absentee and affidavit ballots would normally take three days in Clinton County, that time has now been reduced to one business day.

“We used to count everything by hand,” said Republican Commissioner Gregory Campbell.

With candidates from all around the county crowded around as election officials counted ballots, Campbell and Election Specialist Jerry Klaus fired up the new system last Wednesday.

This county is the first in the state to use the system, said Clear Ballot Sales Engineer Ana Quevedo, who briefed county officials on the new technology.

In total, three counties in New York state utilize Clear Ballot technology.

“This is much faster,” Campbell remarked happily, updating totals throughout the day as each voting district was counted.

Clear Count is operated by election officials connecting to a browser-based program via a private server. Ballots are fed into a scanner, which takes photos of each ballot and tabulates results.

Election officials created an assembly line, last week, with Campbell and Democratic Commissioner Mary Dyer opening and reviewing the absentees before passing them to Deputy Commissioners Brandi Lloyd and Jodi Currier, who unfolded and counted the ballots before handing them to Klaus, who fed them into the Clear Count machine and kept track of unclear ballots.

Quevedo stood by, watching it all, offering tips and suggestions for better using the system.

Clear Count not only expedites the ballot counting process, but allows the board of elections to store, inspect and review ballots on one system.

By late afternoon, over 1,176 absentees had been counted from the county’s 14 towns and the City of Plattsburgh.